Sponsored by the Department of Music and Dramatic Arts, Encore! 2009 will feature a host of guest artists and dozens of concerts, recitals, operas, plays and dance programs from January through May.

Moving this year to the month of April, the eighth annual Bill Evans Jazz Festival honors the seven-time Grammy Award winner and 1950 Southeastern graduate who was the most influential jazz pianist of his generation. Throughout his life, Evans fondly remembered his college years, calling his time at Southeastern the happiest period of his life. He returned to campus for a concert 30 years after his graduation, shortly before his death in 1980.

The 2009 festival will feature a special concert on April 23 at Southeastern’s Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts. Three world-renowned New Orleans-born musicians – pianist Ellis Marsalis, jazz bassist and composer Chuck Israels, and drummer Troy Davis -- will form the special Bill Evans Jazz Festival Trio to perform an evening of classic jazz standards.

Tickets – available at columbiatheatre.org and at the downtown Hammond theater’s box office (220 E. Thomas St., 985-543-4371) -- are $27, Orchestra 1 and Loge; $23, Orchestra 2 and Balcony 1; and $21, Balcony 2. The event is free to Southeastern students with their university I.D.

The festival will open on April 20 with a 7:30 p.m. performance by the Southeastern Alumni Jazz Ensemble at the Pottle Music Building Auditorium. On April 24, Israels will perform with two Southeastern jazz groups – the Southeastern Jazz Combos at 4 p.m. in the Recital Hall, and Southeastern Jazz Ensemble II at 7:30 p.m. in Pottle Auditorium. All events are free.

The spring performing arts series will also include the annual Southeastern Guitar Festival with five events during April that feature an eclectic mix of guitar programs, including Celtic guitar, music for guitar and voice, jazz, and traditional solo guitar and guitar ensembles. Artists include faculty guitarist David Bryan performing with soprano Jessica Davis Bryan, the Southeastern Guitar Quartet, the Southeastern Guitar Ensemble, and the talented performers of the popular All Styles Night.

The Southeastern Opera/Music Theatre Workshop will present Johann Strauss’s most celebrated and popular operetta, “Die Fledermaus.” Southeastern Theatre will join the schedule with a new adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s madcap farce “The Servant of Two Masters” and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet’s intense 1992 drama, “Oleanna.”

Most Encore! events are free. For an “Encore!” brochure or additional information, contact the Department of Music and Dramatic Arts at (985) 549-2184.